Preparing for the Festival
by Sessy-sama
Summary: Zuko and Mai go shopping in preparation of the annual festival when Zuko comes upon an old friend.  Ruminations on the Blue Spirit, post-series.  Ficlet


I do not own anyone in Avatar, of course. I'd forgotten I wrote this forever ago. Just a little story, originally supposed to be in early season three, but re-vamped it for post-series. Enjoy.

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><p>Zuko eyed the mask hanging in front of him on the cart's side and couldn't help but get a strange, melancholic nostalgia just from its image. Nothing more than mere paint and wood carved in an ominous, but ultimately harmless, design. And yet, for a time those blue and white colors offered him a freedom that he was denied in his title of Prince Zuko. For a time he became a rumor lost to the whispers of back alleys and dingy old barstools, and in that Zuko… No, in that the Blue Spirit became a phantom with no loyalties and no shame. Zuko had once reveled in that freedom, and it was becoming ever more difficult to ignore its lure now that it stared back at him.<p>

With the tenderness of meeting an old friend, Zuko picked the mask from the peg it dangled on and turned it over in his hand. The unpainted wood was smooth to touch and a smirk momentarily played across his mouth. He remembered the first time he'd worn it. It might have been to rescue the Avatar, but the satisfaction of taking Zhao's prize tempered his own disappointment at letting him get away. In fact, it was enough to just know Zhao knew at the end it was him, the banished, shamed prince who beat him again.

Zuko hesitated a moment, almost unsure why he even toyed with the idea, before bringing the mask to his face and looking out. Wood and paint, nothing more, and yet he could feel it again. The Blue Spirit. The freedom. He could do anything, go anywhere, and who would know? Who would care?

"Zuko, did you pick one yet?"

"What?" Mai's voice tore Zuko from his disjointed reverie and he turned to face her, the mask still hovering close, teasing him to return to the spirit it carried. A couple of masks hung from her arm as she made her way around the corner of the cart to him.

"I asked if you'd found a mask you liked. Looks like you have."

Zuko looked back at the mask still in his hand ready to be put on. "Yeah, well, sort of. I—I like the way this one feels." He smiled at her awkwardly, as if he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't right in front of her.

"Well, let me see it on you." Mai carelessly took the mask from his hand and put it on him, leaning in close to tie it in the back.

She didn't know what it meant, Zuko told himself when the desire to snatch it back from her nearly overwhelmed him. She couldn't understand what it meant, that it wasn't him behind this mask. She didn't—

Zuko looked at Mai through the mask, her head tilted to the side and a skeptical frown slowly forming on her face. She might have been disappointed, but Zuko couldn't stop the smile hiding behind the Blue Spirit's scowl. He just loved how she looked when she hated things, it was almost adorable in a Mai-ish way.

"Hmm, angry and depressing at the same time. How boring. Ty Lee said we're suppose to pick masks that bring out," Mai paused, looking positively ill at the notion she was about to say, "the light, happy, pink parts of our aura that we normally keep hidden. I still wonder exactly where she thinks this pink part of me is."

The way she complained only made Zuko move closer so he could see her better through the restrictive slits. Her eyebrow tended to twitch slightly when she had to consider something that disturbed her. She'd never actually do it, but the thought itself was enough to garner such a cute reaction. Not that he'd mention it to her. Why take away the fun of watching her? Though, the mask was making that rather enjoyable hobby of his very difficult.

"So what kind of masks did you pick, then? I'm not wearing anything pink," Zuko replied with a disgust in his voice that mirrored her expression.

"Good, because I won't date anyone who'd be seen in such a horrible color, not even the Fire Lord." He waited a moment for her to smile — the way she used to when they both agreed on how awful something was — and would have enjoyed it if only the mask hadn't cut away part of her face when he turned his head. She reached forward and pulled the blue and white mask from his face and hung it back on a free peg on the cart. "Try this on."

A flamboyant half-mask dropped into his hands that left Zuko unmistakably tongue-tied. It was ghastly, with bright red, purple, and green sequences sewn (with frightening meticulousness) over its entirety to resemble the scales of a peacock-lizard. Along the edges, deep blue and red feathers adorned the mask to cover the addition of the leather strap (that glittered, how did they get leather to glitter?) to hold it onto its wearer. Zuko couldn't put it on, he could barely stand to hold this abomination. It was just—

"Hideous," Mai finished for him. He looked up to see her wearing an equally ridiculous (and for that matter, matching) half-mask herself, a pronounced frown making the whole image a thousand times funnier. As if knowing how much he wanted to burst out laughing, Mai quickly grabbed the mask in his hands and tied it around his face before he could do much to protest.

"You don't actually think I am going to wear this in public, do you?" Zuko questioned skeptically. Surely Mai knew better than to actually _listen_ to Ty Lee's blathering.

"It might not make small children run away in terror," Mai sighed, "but it does have two advantages over your choice."

Advantages? Sure these might be able to blind someone enough that they wouldn't notice who was actually wearing it, but was that really better than his mask?

Seeing he wasn't about to believe her, Mai stepped up and kissed him right there in the middle of the street, momentarily knocking away any objections (and most other thoughts) from Zuko's mind. "Can we do that in your mask?"

Not in any way that either of them would enjoy nearly as much. Damn. "Okay, that _is_ an advantage," Zuko conceded, "but I'm still not wearing this to the festival. The Fire Lord cannot be caught dead in this."

"I know," Mai agreed with an odd confidence in her voice. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted herself so they were once again close enough to kiss. "Everyone else does too, so who's going to find us in the crowd."

A mischievous smirk mirrored on both their faces as the realization dawned on him how much more appealing this made the mask's first advantage. He kissed her again. With the responsibilities of the nation on him all the time he couldn't help but enjoy the idea of an entire, uninterrupted night with Mai at the festival. He'd never have imagined such a disgusting mask could give him such freedom.

Freedom . . .

To enjoy himself. To indulge himself. To be the way he wanted to be with someone who cared about him. The same feeling the Blue Spirit mask offered and yet such a different world it opened. Perhaps the masks were the part of him that he really wanted to be, or was that just the lure they proffered to ensnare him?

Mai carefully stowed the two masks away so they wouldn't be seen and turned back to Zuko, who was once more staring at the blue and white image he'd once brought to life. "Are you coming, Zuko?"

"Yeah, but we should get something or the others might wonder." It wasn't the truth, not completely, but what else could he tell Mai? Zuko took the Blue Spirit mask once more and put it in her bag. He didn't need it anymore, he'd realized that when he saw Mai through the mask's eyes, but he wanted it. He wanted to remember the freedom it held, even if he wasn't alone anymore to need it.

"You're right," she agreed sourly, once again looking at the cart. After a moment, Mai turned away and started down the market street with Zuko in hasty pursuit. On the way she grabbed a large-rimmed, pointed hat with a sheer wrap encircling it and dropped it atop her head. "Masks are tiresome."


End file.
